Samantha Bradshaw
Former DPhil student
Profile
Samantha Bradshaw graduated from the DPhil in Information, Communication & the Social Sciences in 2020.
Samantha Bradshaw was a D.Phil. candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute. She is also a Researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow at the Canadian International Council. Samantha’s work examines government use of social media for coordinated digital disinformation campaigns. Her research has been featured by numerous media outlets, including the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times. She holds an MA in global governance from the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and a joint honors BA in political science and legal studies from the University of Waterloo. Samantha tweets from @sbradshaww.
Research interests
Social media and democracy, cyber security, computational propaganda, Internet governance, human rights online, government and politics.
Positions held at the OII
- DPhil student, October 2016 – September 2020
- Research Assistant, Computational Propaganda Project, October 2016-
Research
Current projects
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Computational Propaganda
Participants: Professor Philip Howard, Dr Vidya Narayanan, Dr Dimitra (Mimie) Liotsiou, Lisa-Maria Neudert, Samantha Bradshaw
This project will focus on how bots, algorithms and other forms of automation are used by political actors in countries around the world.
News
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Social media manipulation by political actors now an industrial scale problem prevalent in over 80 countries – annual Oxford report
13 January 2021
The manipulation of public opinion through social media remains a growing threat to democracies around the world, according to the 2020 media manipulation survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, part of the University of Oxford.
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Use of social media to manipulate public opinion now a global problem, says new report
26 September 2019
Organised social media manipulation campaigns are now prevalent in 70 countries around the world (more than doubling from 28 in 2017), finds new Oxford Internet Institute report.
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New report reveals growing threat of organised social media manipulation world-wide
20 July 2018
The manipulation of public opinion over social media platforms has emerged as a critical threat to public life.
Blog
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Three reasons junk news spreads so quickly across social media
26 March 2018
Authors: Philip Howard, Samantha Bradshaw
Why and how has the rise of social media contributed to the spread of what we at the Computational Propaganda Project call “junk news”–the ...
Read More Three reasons junk news spreads so quickly across social media
Press
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Online manipulation on a global scale
20 January 2021 BBC Digital Planet
Online manipulation on a global scale. Also GPS collars for grazing animals that avoid fencing and is ubiquitous connectivity increasing cybersecurity risks?
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Private firms pocketing millions from disinformation-for-hire, report says
15 January 2021 The Irish News
Private companies are increasingly being hired by governments and political parties to manipulate public opinion through social media, according to new research.
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A growing number of governments are spreading disinformation online
13 January 2021 The Economist
Such campaigns are becoming more sophisticated and harder to stop.
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Private firms pocketing millions from disinformation-for-hire, report says
13 January 2021 Press Association
Private companies are increasingly being hired by governments and political parties to manipulate public opinion through social media, according to new research.
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Social media manipulation by political actors an industrial scale problem, report finds
13 January 2021 Phys Org
Social media manipulation of public opinion is a growing threat to democracies around the world, according to the 2020 media manipulation survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, which found evidence in every one of the 80+ countries surveyed.
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Private firms pocketing millions from disinformation-for-hire, report says
13 January 2021 The Oxford Mail
Private companies are increasingly being hired by governments and political parties to manipulate public opinion through social media, according to new research.
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Social media manipulation by political actors an industrial scale problem – Oxford report
13 January 2021 Mirage News
Social media manipulation of public opinion is a growing threat to democracies around the world, according to the 2020 media manipulation survey from the Oxford Internet Institute, which found evidence in every one of the 80+ countries surveyed.
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How Russia’s Troll Farm Is Changing Tactics Before the Fall Election
29 March 2020 The New York Times
The Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, which interfered in the 2016 election, is using different methods to hide itself better.
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Twitter Moves to Target Fake Videos and Photos
5 February 2020 New York Times
While stopping short of an outright ban, the social media company plans to label or take down material that appears to have been digitally manipulated.
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Fake ‘Likes’ Remain Just a Few Dollars Away, Researchers Say
6 December 2019 New York Times
Despite Big Tech’s attempts to combat manipulation, companies that sell clicks, likes and followers on social media are easy to find.
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So the internet didn’t turn out the way we hoped
14 November 2019 New York TImes
The Internet dream became a nightmare. What will become of it now?
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At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds
26 September 2019 New York Times
At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds.
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Viral visuals driving social media manipulation on YouTube, Instagram: researchers
26 September 2019 reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-disinformation/viral-visuals-driving-social-media-manipulation-on-youtube-instagram-researchers-idUSKBN1WB0ED
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China becomes a ‘global disinformation superpower’ says report into online propaganda
26 September 2019 Sky News
More than 70 countries are now sharing misinformation online and politicians are using propaganda tools to garner support.
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Decision by tech giants to ban Irish abortion ads was ‘too little, too late’
18 October 2018 Irish Times
Fake news researcher sides with critics over ineffective move by Google and Facebook
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Trump’s claim that Google is biased against him distracts from tech’s bigger issues: Expert
5 September 2018 CNBC
Trump last week accused Google of rigging search results to prioritize negative coverage and left-leaning outlets — an academic says that distracts from bigger issues.
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Data-protection laws must be extended to political parties
22 March 2018 Globe and Mail
Samantha Bradshaw is a senior fellow at the Canadian International Council. She is also a D.Phil. candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute and a researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University.
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Tech Tent: The battle with the bots
23 February 2018 BBC News
Is the battle against online propaganda already being lost as AI puts powerful new weapons in the hands of the fake news merchants?
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Twitter bot purge prompts backlash
21 February 2018 BBC News
"This is a company that's under a lot of heat to clean up its act in terms of how its platform has been exploited to spread misinformation and junk news," said Samantha Bradshaw from the University of Oxford's Computational Propaganda Project.